The Republic of Ireland Ladies Snooker Association will commence their second Horizon Snooker Scholarship for females here in Ireland.
This Scholarship will encompass all areas of the sport, from Dress and Deportment to skills on the table with purposeful practice routines for these ladies to reach their goals in a progressive way, with assessments at intervals along the way. Technique will be developed along with a number of Psychology seminars and Psychology practice routines that were developed by World Snooker Coach and Sports Psychologist, Dan Carroll.
World Billiards Coach Aidan Murray will be on hand to develop and raise the standard of these ladies at Billiards which will benefit both cue sports as they give enhanced knowledge to the students over time.
The RILSA Academy at Sharkx Newbridge will be the host venue for our students where they will receive free practice each week with free professional coaching at intervals. All students will receive updates and practice routines every few weeks during the year-long Scholarship, where they will have to reach set goals along the way in order to proceed to the next goal and so on.
We had 10 ladies interested in the Scholarship with 7 applying for the course. It was a difficult task to reach a final 2 but we know that we made the correct choices in the end, however all those who applied for the Scholarship are encouraged and supported by RILSA and will be looking good for the next Scholarship in 2022 where we will be looking to increase the numbers then.
The following ladies were selected
Joanna Ward from Kildare
Jennifer Earle from Dublin
Jennifer is only playing snooker just over two years and is very much improved in the last season finishing 11th on the main RILSA Tour Rankings. We will certainly see Jennifer excel during the coming season as she is improving all the time having brought a number of our top players close in matches, so its only a matter of time when she will overtake them. Her 5th place on the National Intermediate ranking is a great result for her while making the top 4 on the National Intermediate Billiards Tour with a 3rd spot finish, showing great progress. Jennifer is looking to add a Silver Presidents Gaisce Award to her already Bronze she received in 2020
Joanna Ward only got back into cue sports about a year and a half ago and excelled in both sports as she won a number of National Intermediate Ranking events in Snooker and Billiards, finishing off the season in 2020 winning the National 100Up Billiards Championship thus moving her into Amateur status on the Billiards Tour. Joanna finished a credible 3rd place on the National Intermediate Snooker tour and 2nd on the Intermediate Billiards Tour while on the main snooker tour she reach 8th spot and 4th on the main billiards tour, so great progress in just a short time.
We look forward to see these girls progress on this Scholarship and we wish them every success and an enjoyable future in female cue sports in Ireland.
A special word of thanks to Bernie & Paul of Sharkx Newbridge for their support in giving free table time to these ladies. We in RILSA are delighted with the sponsorship and support of the club, we really appreciate it.
